Only miles away, but towns light years apart in Irene impact

While it's only a 20-minute drive from Main Street in Prattsville to its counterpart in Windham, the recovery from Tropical Storm Irene in the hamlets seem separated by light years.

Prattsville is still scarred by houses marked with red X's, off their foundation, and front lawns with piles of debris abandoned to let weeds grow.

One week before the year anniversary, the happiest voices were from a group of visiting teenagers who brought a cheery disposition to the task of clearing mud from the basement of a home owned by senior citizens.

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Windham on the same late afternoon displayed a thriving business center, with customers at outdoor restaurant tables, people visiting gift shops that have brightly colored signs, and music emanating from backyards, where family picnics were taking place.

Prattsville, which endured flooding when the Schoharie Creek overflowed, has had a core of volunteers coming to town for the past 52 weeks.

"I would say to totally recover we have at least two years," said Jackie Wilkie, a caseworker with Hunterfield Christian Training Center.

"It is really good to see how the town has stuck together to support each other," she said. "People who are in their homes are trying to help the people who are still not in their homes. We're seeing neighbors helping neighbors, watching for things they need, where they'll say, 'you need a bed, I know someone who's got a bed.'"

Wilkie said restoration has been done for 25 of 35 homeowners who were forced from their houses a year ago. However, she added that permanent losses for the community come from homes that had been along Main Street/state Route 23 for more than 100 years.

"Some of the architectural character of the town is lost forever," she said. "So many of the homes have been condemned. The big yellow house that was kind of the poster child of the Prattsville flood was just a signature home of the town, that's gone."

Many of the owners of damaged Prattsville homes are unwilling to discuss the status of repairs, stating that there are people who have problems far worse than theirs. Neighbors who have been volunteering to bring these properties back to life are respectful to honor requests to not to make specific difficulties public when talking with media who have been visiting the town.

Part-time resident Julie Okon, who has been working on the property of a friend, said avoiding a defeated feeling comes through a sense of proportion necessary when providing assistance.

"I said to him I'm up here for a few hours tomorrow, just pick something that I can notice a difference in," she said. "It needs to be something you can see an improvement in when you look at. Otherwise it's just overwhelming."

Okon said there are still places, including some Prattsville landmarks, that need help.

"We did the (Prattsville Reformed Church) and that was disgusting, taking out the pews and the carpet," she said. "It was totally gross."

While spirits in Windham, where overturned cars where swept into sinkholes caused by the Bataviakill Creek, are buoyed by having most visible signs of damage erased, there is a sense that more traction is needed. The absence of snow last winter helped repairs be accomplished sooner, but another mild season in the home of Windham Mountain Ski Resort could put a chill on business by keeping customers away.

"Even though it let us get a lot done, it hurt us not having snow last year because everybody who was coming up wanted to spend money," said Drew Schuster, owner of Catskill Mountain Country Store in Windham. "So I would have much rather been rebuilding and busy."

Schuster said the family needs to use retirement savings to get the store, which includes a restaurant, back in business in stages between October and February.

"We have about a half-million dollar net loss after insurance and that's a little difficult to deal with but we're working it out," he said.

Schuster is quick to credit his children, who spent days cleaning mud from the store, and the community for making sacrifices that helped him reopen his business.

"We took the time to do all the rebuilding that we've been wanting to do over the last five years," he said. "So our store is in beautiful shape. Our grounds are about 95 percent complete and we've had a tremendous amount of help from neighbors and the community."

Neapolis Pizzeria and Grille and the Creekside Market Place are owned by the Flouras family and share a building next to a stream feeding the Bataviakill Creek and ordinarily is 20 feet above stream level. The businesses had all the contents washed away during Tropical Storm Irene, with a stream level that came up five feet inside the building, but was able to reopen the market in January and the pizzeria in February.

While damage at Neapolis has been replaced with fresh construction and contents, Mary Flouras put aside her bright demeanor when talking about the post-storm stress that recurs every time there are heavy rains.

"That whole week, that whole month following the storm was just a blur, it was like just one day," she said.

"We see the creek start to rise or the water come down (and) it's not a good feeling," Flouras said. "It all comes back to us."

Vickie Malegiannakis, co-owner of Michael's Diner, said among the reason for optimism is that business owners have been able to survive the bureaucracy of insurance companies as much as the flood and a snowless winter.

"It probably took seven months to get a disbursement and that was just an initial disbursement," she said. "You go through inspections and more inspections and they come, and in the end it all works out."

Malegiannakis said it has been important for the community to maintain off-season activities that provide reasons for visitors to come up to the mountains of Greene County.

"They did the Tour of the Catskills, they did the Windham World Cup cycling event, this weekend the mountain did the Warrior Dash," she said. "That was important because it brings in people from all over the state, from other states, and the World Cup was an international event. It brought people from other countries. All three of those events were very busy for every single business owner in town."